Vol. 7, No. 7, 1990

This Old House

David Henke

The New Age Movement has rushed into American society like air filling a vacuum so that now it permeates every facet. What caused this vacuum? Why is the New Age Movement filling it?

Perhaps this allegory will help to explain it.

Let us call our Judaeo - Christian world view the "House" in which we all live. The House has provided comfort and security because it is built on a solid foundation of truth. Within our House we learned the answers to the questions of who we are, why we are here, and where we are going.

In our House we also know where we are in the "neighborhood," that is, among other world views, or, Houses. But, just as in a family, some will question the correctness of the answers their House provides and will challenge the claim that they are living in the best House in the neighborhood.

The Elders (the Church) whose job it was to teach the occupants and defend the foundations of the House became lazy and unconcerned about the importance of maintaining the foundations upon which the House was built. After all didn't almost everyone in the House agree it was built on a solid Rock?

Some who felt the air was stale flung open the windows to let in some new wind of doctrine and became ill with a deceptive virus (heresy). They then spread the virus among others in the House causing many to become sick, and some even died. Some of the sick stayed by themselves in the Utah Room, while others stayed on the front porch.

Some others living in the House began to chafe under what they considered restrictions to their fun loving lifestyle (materialists), while others (humanists) began to doubt the truthfulness of the answers to the questions because they too felt hemmed in by what they wrongly considered a narrow minded view. Their opinion was that "no deity will save us, we must save ourselves."

The Humanist Manifesto

So they rejected the supernatural answers provided in the House for completely "naturalistic" answers (evolution). This viewpoint helped the fun lovers to reason that "you only go around once in life so grab all the gusto you can get."

Generations ago the majority of people living in the House were in basic agreement about the answers to those questions. But, the Elders who had the responsibility to teach, train, and correct those who lived in the House were undiscerning and allowed some of the naturalists to handle the teaching for them because they seemed so well educated (the naturalists considered education to be the answer to all the problems in the House).

The Elders didn't see a problem here because the naturalists were not teaching about the cherished truths of the House but about the secular subjects of history, science, and the arts. However, the naturalists used their opportunity to become the agents of change in the old House.

So, after several generations, the product of their "education" was that the House now seemed too small to a very large portion of its occupants. So they decided to leave the House and live in the natural world outside, "under the sun" as a wise man once called it (Ecclesiastes 1:1-11).

Well, after they had lived "under the sun" for a long enough time they began to realize that such a life was hard and provided little comfort against those nagging questions of "Who are we?" "Why are we here?" and especially "Where are we going?"

(It just seems that mankind is made in such a way that he has to have answers to those questions, answers that are bigger than himself. He has a tendency to build a "house," a worldview, around himself to provide meaning and answers to life, to fill the vacuum in his soul.)

So many who were living "under the sun" began desiring to live in a house again. But, would they go back to this old House? or, would they seek another?

There were other houses in the neighborhood that seemed exotic and so attractive. Why not explore and discover new vistas, new ways of looking at the old questions. They were reputed to be occupied by wise sages who had communed with other dimensions, and knew so much more about the answers to the questions.

Well, after visiting many of the houses farther to the east it was decided that what they had to offer was just the thing to add on to the old House. So, back they came to this old House with many strange and exotic new ideas.

Since they couldn't take over control of the House, they set about the task of persuading the House's occupants that there was a new age of peace and prosperity coming. The fun lovers saw ideas they could use to manage their stress, and think their way into new business prosperity.

From the perspective of those who had travelled to the east end of the neighborhood they could see that the occupants of the old House had just misunderstood the age old answers to the questions. They had not been totally wrong. After all didn't the old answers include the statement that "ye shall be as gods?"

Many in the House were confused by these sayings. Others who had been asleep and had not been reading their lessons began to speak and think much like those talking about the new age. They couldn't tell the difference. Even some of the Elders began to peal out this new thinking.

But the watchman (Ezekiel 33:1-7) in the House was going up and down the hall knocking on the doors saying something about "Beware of false prophets" (Matthew 7:15).

Many wished they would just be quiet and let them sleep.